The bulk handling of farm produce is increasing each year in volume and in kind of produce. One of the problems involved in the bulk handling of farm produce is the transfer of loose fruit or vegetables from wagons used in the field to receive the picked produce, to large highway trucks used to haul the produce to the processor. At the present time, several different systems are used for the purpose of transporting produce from wagon to truck but each of these frequently result in substantial damage occurring during transport of crops such as tomatoes.
Obviously anything which can be done to simplify handling and/or reduce produce damage, while at the same time being relatively inexpensive to manufacture, would be an asset in the handling of produce.
The present invention provides an apparatus which is believed to overcome, or to at least reduce disadvantages associated with some of the prior art produce transporting equipment. It consists of, in general, a portable bin that can be used on most standard types of flat-bed farm wagons. When the bin has been filled, one man can transfer the bin and contents to a highway truck using a front end loader of the type commonly found on most farm tractors.
The apparatus is designed so that on arrival at the truck, movement of the bin by the front end loader from a generally horizontal transporting mode to a tipped produce dumping mode will result in the automatic opening of a door in the bin through the use of a gravity operated door opening mechanism.
It is an advantage of the produce bin and its associated self-dumping apparatus that it can readily be attached to almost any standard front end loader on a farm tractor and that it can be manipulated when dumping the produce to minimize substantially, damage to the produce. In addition, as compared with certain known prior art means of transporting farm produce from pickers to highway trucks, the apparatus of this invention is labour saving, requiring only one man.